Honda to recall thousands of Irish cars after airbag defects are found

Honda has confirmed it will recall thousands of Irish cars after discovering defects with the vehicles’ airbags.

The company has told The Irish Timesthat there are 9,200 airbags in Ireland that need to be recalled because of safety concerns, but that it’s not entirely sure how many cars this equates to as some but not others were equipped with more than one airbag.

Irish customers will be informed if they’re to be affected by the recall as soon as Honda builds up a sufficient amount of new airbags for the work to be carried out, which should occur in the coming weeks. Individual sales records are now being examined to see exactly which cars were affected, but Honda does know that for the drivers’ airbag, the cars will be: Jazz hatchbacks built between 2004 and 2007; Civics built between 2004 and 2005 and CR-Vs built in 2007.

For passenger airbags, it’s Jazz hatchbacks 2003 to 2008, CR-Vs 2002 to 2007, Accords 2003 to 2009, Civics 2003 to 2006, and Stream MPVs built between 2003 and 2005.

The recall is part of a huge, global problem relating to airbags produced by Japanese company Takata. The US National Highway Transportation and Safety Agency (NHTSA) is currently investigating whether or not Takata committed a federal crime by not informing authorities of defects in its airbags when they were first discovered almost a decade ago. The worldwide death toll attributed to Takata is currently at six.

The firm’s chairman, Shigehisa Takada, has issued a statement saying that “from its founding, Takata Corporation has always been dedicated to public safety. Our primary mission is to make products that save lives and prevent injuries.

“Takata deeply regrets the injuries and fatalities that have occurred in accidents involving ruptured airbag inflators. We are proud that Takata airbags have saved thousands of lives and prevented hundreds of thousands of serious injuries by safely deploying in more than two million accidents around the world. But any failure of even one Takata airbag to deploy as designed in an automobile accident is incompatible with our commitment to the highest standards of product quality.”